Press Releases

Member States are currently developing their EU funds spending plans to demonstrate to the European Commission how they are going to use the unprecedented amounts of EU budget and recovery funds. A campaign launched by Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, under the Unify project, identifies climate and environmental friendly and harmful practices that 13 Member States and regions plan to finance from the EU’s purse.

New analysis of national plans, policies and measures in six Central and Eastern European countries, reveals inadequate action to tackle energy poverty. The report, prepared by NGOs and researchers across Europe, finds that Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia have failed to provide a clear definition of energy poverty in their national plans, a bare minimum required by the EU.

A new briefing published today by the Unify project partners across Europe underlines the importance of a climate- friendly Common Agriculture Policy to ensure that the agriculture sector contributes to the objectives of the European Green Deal and the EU’s commitments under the Paris Agreement. This document, coming out during the trialogue negotiations between the […]

A new report published under Unify project identifies concrete investment proposals as listed in National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP) of 14 Member States to be funded in order to ensure a green recovery. The report titled “EU Funds for a Green Recovery”, comes right after the president of the European Council Charles Michel’s proposal to increase the climate spending target of EU funds from 25% to 30%, and makes it clear that if the EU funds are used wisely, they could both ensure a green recovery and boost climate ambition.

A new report published today by the Unify project partners, Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe and ZERO, looks into the final National energy and Climate Plans of 15 Member States and indicates that a number of countries made some improvements in their final NECPs, both in terms of targets and of policies and measures. However, these improvements are not enough to catalyse the energy transition required to achieve the long term objective of the Paris Agreement.

The new briefing published by Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe underlines the importance of aligning Europe’s long term strategies to fight the climate crisis with the proposed financial measures.

Transitioning to climate neutrality requires bold long-term investments in clean energy infrastructure. And public and private investments into energy efficiency and renewable energy are key to ensuring a sustainable economic recovery out of the current crisis. However, a new report shows how little EU countries use existing EU regional development funds for this purpose. With the EU budget best placed to support the sustainable economic recovery, Member States must make climate action a much bigger priority of future EU funds spending.

The Estonian Government decided to allocate 125 million EUR in aid to the state-owned company Eesti Energia for the construction of a shale oil plant. This decision is irresponsible in light of the ongoing pandemic, Estonia’s future and EU’s climate goals.

A Consortium of 11 NGOs across the EU are proud to announce the official launch of “Unify: Bringing the EU together on Climate Action” project which aims to show the potential to increase climate ambition in three key policy processes:  programming for the use of EU funding at the national level, National Energy and Climate […]

This report released in November 2019 indicates how much progress has been made since the European Commission published its recommendations on each Member State’s draft NECP. Despite some improvements, Member States need to do more in the next month to ensure that they at least meet the EU’s 2030 objectives, let alone the objectives of the Paris Agreement.